Hypothermic Stockholm Syndrome
by impart
Summary: Kairi is kidnapped by Axel.  The two of them all alone on a cold, cold Gummi Ship. Anything could happen...
1. Hyperborean

Upon opening her eyes the light scolded her. Then the frigged air came to her attention It was cold.

Disoriented, she placed palms onto the icy floor to push herself up. She was shaking. Her whole body ached from tremors, and where it didn't ache, it was numb. Her teeth had begun to chatter. She reached a cold hand to her face, where warm tears were beginning to form in her eyes, blurring the bright room around her

She didn't know what she was doing there, or where she had been. She struggled to call her memory back to consciousness.

Then, a loud bang disturbed the quieted room. Echoing like the sound of something hard that had slammed against metal.

Then again there was a sound, much closer to her. Her head snapped to the direction of the noise and through a door a new chill entered the room. She blinked hard, her wet eyelashes touching just above her cheeks.

In the doorway stood a tall slender figure, and a sudden violent recall of her previous events. Her tearful eyes widened in fear as they met his, and she cautiously moved away from him. This was the man that had kidnapped her, the man who had dragged her kicking and screaming form Twilight Town, Away from her friends, away from her quest to Sora. She had moved backwards until she had hit the wall, watching him all the while, as he did her.

"Where am I?" Kairi demanded her teeth chattering loudly. The room filled with Axel's dark laughter

"Your stuck" he said lightly, his eyebrows raised at the defiance of the shivering girl. She glared back at him boldly. He held her gaze.

"No I mean-"she began, but Axel interrupted her

"Well, bathrooms over there" he waved a lazy arm at a doorway in between them,then turned.

"Wait!" she called after him

"Toodaloo" he called over her, walking out of the room.

Frustrated, she put her head in her hands. She needed to get out of there, there must be a way.

For the first time she took in her surroundings. She was in a brightly lit room. The walls were steel, the floor was steel the ceiling was steel, and oddly high. There were no windows, there were only two doors the one that Axel had come through, and the one that he designated as the bathroom.

She got to her knees, her legs still numb. She wasn't sure if it was wise to stand. Pushing up from her palm's she slowly got to the feet. Bracing herself on the wall she took one step, then another. On the third, her foot tilted to the side and she lost her balance, falling straight down. Her ankle emitted a strong, but dulled pain. She bit down on her lip bringing her foot around to hold it in her cold hands.

She sat alone in the middle of the quiet room. For now, all there was to do was wait.


	2. Lima

How long had it been? She wondered clutching her knees to her chest. She sat in the middle of the room away from the walls that the cold seemed to radiate from. She fell in and out of sleep easily shivering until she was too tired to shiver any more, and then waking up. She couldn't discern if her ankle was injured or not, only that it hurt vaguely. Her skin had developed a sickish blue tint, one that made her skin splotchy and her veins apparent. There was a continuous buzz that spread throughout the room, it was from the lights. Kairi didn't know if the sound was comforting, or unnerving to her. Regardless, she listened, for a very long time, until a distant crash sounded and the door was pushed open. Kairi looked up at him through the tops of her knees. He was holding a plate. He walked to her kneeling down and placing the plate before her. She couldn't bight back her lustrous response

"_bread?_" she hissed from behind her curled legs

"your lucky you get any food at all" Axel responded his eyes reprimanding her. She looked away. He stood there for a moment before turning to leave.

Kairi didn't realize how hungry she was until then. She could smell the bread from where she sat, her stomach growled. She waited to hear the door close before she reached for it, and after she had finished it she was even more hungry then she had been before. She put her head in her hands and wept.

Kairis sense of time seemed to slip further from her grasp the more it passed. The more the walls looked the same color, the more the lights made the same buzzing sound, the more the bread smelt the same way. She had lost count of how many times it had been that she was fed, for the majority of the time she woke up with the plate beside her. She never looked at Axel anymore when he walked in, she no longer waited until he was out of the room to start eating, she just ate when it was given to her, never meeting his eyes. While she waited between meals, or for sleep to come she had decided that she did not like the buzzing of the lights, not at all. It was a continuous, persisting, never fluctuating unceasing annoyance and it did nothing to keep her mind from playing tricks on her,nothing at all. It did not keep her from occasionally hearing the the sound of the sea shore, incoherent music, Sora's voice. It did not keep her from looking for him _every_ time, even though she knew it was impossible that he would be there.

She only ever stood up to use the bathroom, sometimes she would just leave the faucet on, the running water an agreeable alternative to the incessant buzzing from above.

The familiar bang reached Kairi's ears, and she listened to the door open, her eyes locked onto the floor and she waited. Footsteps did not approach her. She looked up at her captor boldly and met a shocked expression. She disregarded it.

"Wheres my food?" She asked incredulously locking contemptuous eyes with his. They were the first words she had spoken in a very long time, they were strange for her to hear, they were strange for her to say. She turned her head away from him.

"Sorry" she muttered weakly

His footsteps approached her

"I ran out " he said with a sigh kneeling down to be at her level

"I was just on my way to get some, I just came back to check on you to see if you were still-" as he said this he reached a had to her chin and tilted her face to his direction, she would still not meet his gaze but she felt him watching her

"...alive" he added darkly

how long had it been since she had a conversation with another human being?, how long had it been since she had been touched by one? She closed her eyes to the feeling of human interaction. She could feel the warmth from his body, so close to hers, she could feel it through his gloved fingers on her chin. She moved her eyes to his. The expression he held as he watched her was a conflicted one, as if he were pained, but there was nothing he could do, as if he were guilty.

He stood then, once his had had left her chin she redirected her gaze to the cold ground. It was in the midst of the anticipating silence before his footsteps would take him out, that a high pitched zip ripped through the quiet room. A ruffling sound came down and Axles black trench coat crumpled to the floor beside her exerting Axel's smokey scent into the atmosphere around her, he then turned to leave. When the door slammed shut Kairi reached for the jacket, it was warm. Kairi warped it around her and smiled. For the first time since she had been here she didn't feel cold.


	3. Inimical

Chapter Three.

"Kairi!" a hot hand on her shoulder shook her, and she awoke with a start, Alerted violet eyes finding his. An inaudible sigh of relief escaped him.

"Here" he placed a plate on the ground beside her.

It was pizza, a bit obscure, she thought, but she didn't ask questions, she just ate it.

Axel shifted to sit beside her, while chewing Kairi looked up to shoot him a questionable glance.

They sat in awkward silence until she finished the food.

Then a gloved hand reached for her chin again and her face was tilted to his. She flinched away from his disapproving stare.

"What do you want?" she forced the bitterness from her words.

He reached for her face again, more forcefully, this time his hands held her on ether side of her face. She began to feel the warmth of his skin on the palms of his hands penetrate through his gloves. Her whole body wanted it, craved it, it drew her in.

So much that Kairi hadn't noticed her outstretched arms to his, hands barely hovering over the warm flesh of his forearms.

"Your lips..." he said in a feeble voice.

"They're blue"

Her icy hands came down on his bare skin

it burned. They both flinched back from the drastic change in temperature

"Sorry" she mumbled automatically.

He grabbed her hand suddenly, pressing the flat of her palm onto his hot shoulder.

He held it there, when Kairi tried to draw back he just pressed harder.

"But-" she said, wincing from the pain.

A violent shiver wracked up his body.

She began to feel the numbness painfully leave her finger tips. One of his hands left hers and he warped an arm around her, drawing her closer. He unzipped the cold organization coat that hung heavily on her body and pushed it off of her, holding her tighter as the chill of her skin seeped through his black shirt.

After a few slow minutes Kairi let out a stifled

"Ow"

her body began to feel a new kind of ache, the bruises all over her legs became apparent as a fleshy color returned to her skin. She could feel them everywhere: her hips, ribs, arms, from sleeping on the cold metal floor for all that time.

Axel leaned in close to her and whispered into her ear.

"Im sorry"

Kairi did not respond.


	4. Irresolute

Awake, on the floor again. She wondered if her encounter with Axel had even happened, her skin was cold, completion pale, splotchy, but the jacket was gone.

_This is weird_, that was Kairi's most predominant thought. The feelings she had just felt were weird, the way he was acting was weird. Human contact has just made the whole situation much more uncomfortable. What was she supposed to do when he walked in here again? Sleep came much less frequently now, there was an issue to deal with. The unnerving temperature of her skin, the striking color of her lips had landed her in a risky situation with a dangerous man. She sat and watched the door with challenging eyes, waiting for that dense bang, for him to walk in, to realize her fears

Sure enough, eventually he stood before her, she said nothing, felt awkward, embarrassed, too nervous to meet his eye.

"Are you hungry?" He asked standing still in the middle of the room

"No" she said meekly, her head turned away from him

"Do you want anything?" He asked again, aggressively. Her only concern was to avoid a confrontation, she did not want to make this problem, whatever it was, become worse.

In the back of her mind she knew that she wanted to speak to him, look at him, touch him, she was afraid that if she nourished her basic human need for contact that it would only advance an addiction that she could not afford to have.

"No" she answered finally, her arms squeezing tighter around her knees.

She herd him sigh and dared to look up. He was watching her with those dangerous green eyes, his arms were crossed over his chest. He started towards her, she panicked and looked away from him, her whole body tensed up.

"How about we get you something to drink" He said leaning down and picking her up. He was not saying anything frighting, or impolite, but she became afraid, belittled. She took a shuttering breath in as he turned towards the door, then began to, not shiver, but shake. The situation had suddenly become far more beyond her control then it had already been, where could he be taking her? What could she do? Although she prayed he would not, she felt him react to her trembling. She still refused to meet his eye craning her neck to stiffly look down the hallway they had just walked into, she had never been out of her room before. The rest of the ship appeared to be just as bright, cold, and quiet, in fact, the similarity was disorienting. After turning a few indistinguishable corners he turned into an empty doorway and Kairi was surprised at what she found there.

For as large as the room was it was unsettling, empty,

a white table stood in the middle, with two chairs, He sat her down carefully and moved to one of the shabby cupboards, she began to get cold as soon as his arms had left her. As he scuffled around the kitchen she stared at the table blankly the quiet room filled with conventional sounds, the cling of glass, the running of water, Axels quiet footsteps, soon enough a clear glass of water was placed in her line of vision and Axel sat in the chair across from her.

She reached across the table for the glass of water. it was cold. Drawing it closer to her she contemplated her options, resenting the chill of the glass. If she finished the water maybe she could return to her room soon enough and be away from him. It was worth trying, and pathetic as it was, it was the best option she had.

By the time she had choked down the cool class of water her shaking had gotten much worse, she shivered meekly, trying to not make too much noise, trying to to chatter her teeth too much. She could feel Axel's eyes watching her, her gaze did not leave the ground.

Eventually he stood up, his slow footsteps came towards her as he moved to place a hand over the top of her glass.

"Do you want anymore" he asked as he hovered over her

"No" She answered looking up at the empty glass of water. Drinking it had been a mistake, she was freezing now, desperate for warmth, could not not think clearly

"Is that all you say? 'No'"

"No"

He let out an annoyed sigh. She had not looked at him at all since they had been in the kitchen, but she knew exactly how close he was standing. She could almost feel the warmth radiating off of his body, the hot blood pumping through his veins, it was all she could to to keep from jumping on him.

He bent down to be at her eye level. His warm hand tilted her face to once again force her to look at him.

"If I warm you up will you talk" He said clearly and very slowly

fear spread through her body, was he going to hold her again? say he was sorry? did she want him to? She could no longer tell if she was shivering or shaking anymore, but what did it matter?

If she could force the words out she would have told him _"I dont know"_ but she seemed to not be able to get them out for as hard as she tried to try.

He stood to his normal height and picked her up from the chair. Her heart started beating Was he mad? Was he taking her back to her room? She broke out into a cold sweat as he carried her through the quiet hallway. In her fear she thought of Sora. warm, smiling Sora.

"_Sora, what do I do?" _she thought, as Axel's heavy footsteps came to a stop.


	5. Hermetic

Hermetic-

They had stopped at an open doorway that was sectioned off by a dark green curtain, Kairi's stomach gave a lurch as, without hesitation, Axel walked into the shrouded room.

It felt as if she had just gone through a barrier of warmth, this room was different form the rest. It was dimly lit and colored with drapes along the walls in deep greens and reds, cozy like a heated cafe during the wintertime. It was not what she had expected and she was confused as to weather or not there was a need to be afraid.

_'This must be his room',_ she thought as he set her down on the bed across the doorway. He pulled the covers over her and sat down on the bedside without a word. The silence between them was uncomfortable, but Kairi didn't know if speaking would help. She watched him as he stared forward. His expression was unreadable. She did not know if he was angry with her, if she should feel afraid, or safe.

In this moment of reprieve more prevalent questions began to trouble her, as they had, when she had first got here. Why did Axel want to find Sora?, Was she going to make it out of here alive?, Was she putting Sora in danger by being here? Over time the warm room began to take over her racing thoughts making them sluggish. She fought to stay awake as everything began to fall away, the weight on the bed of Axel sitting beside her, was the last thing to leave her mind as her eyes slid closed.

She dreamed of falling, of drowning in a hopeless ocean, fighting desperately to catch sight of destiny islands sky through the murky ocean water, The burn of salt water in her nose, down her throat, flooding her lungs with a boundless pain. She was fighting with a surreal desperation to discern the way up in the void of the ocean, and finally, at last,

finding thousands of stars falling from a forsaken sky.

The end. Something reached through her chest, a hand, grabbing hold of her heart. crushing it.

She woke with a start, her hands flew to cover her face as the whole of the dream came back to her. She struggled not to cry out. Her dreams were never good, since she had been here, but they were never this bad. The hand around her heart was still squeezing, and she found it remarkable that she did not die from the pain, although she knew that it was killing her.

She felt Axel shift in his seat. He had remained there the whole time she had slept?

Now he would expect her to talk, and if she thought she couldn't before, it was nothing compared to her ability now, Like a hole had been blown through her head and eradicated her of her capability to function.

"How long was I asleep?" she asked into the room after a long while, her face still behind her hands

"Awhile" Axel responded softly. One of his arms made an indentation beside her on the bed, he was leaning over her.

"Are you okay?" he asked, his voice still soft. She took her hands away from her eyes to see him. She knew the correct answer was no, so she chose not to answer him at all.

His gaze shifted and his pressing concern was no longer directed towards her

"How far would you go, if Sora needed you" he asked suddenly into the quiet room

"What would you do to see him again?" Kairi was completely thrown by the question

"Anything" she said unabashedly. Keeping as still as she could, the spectrum of emotions that she felt at the moment seemed limitless

"You may not agree with my motives, but I'll do anything to see Roxas too. That is why I am after Sora, that is why you are here" he said carefully and clearly

Kairi tried to hide her surprise at the mention of Roxas's name. What are the odds this man knew the boy she spoke to once, the boy who had told her Sora's name when it had gone from her mind. Kairi's eyes narrowed at him.

"I will not let you hurt Sora" she warned in a low voice. She stated it plainly into the room, as if it were absolution. She pushed Roxas from her mind

The room was thrown into a quiet tension. The more she took in the real world the more distant her dream became. The pain in her chest was still there, the hand gripped her heart tighter at the mention of Sora, she was sure it would never leave her.

"I respect that" Axel said standing. Again, she was surprised by his remark.

"You know, princess. I can hardly help but like you" he said flashing a devilish smile at her

despite the fact that it made her heart beat a little faster, she returned him a grim stare

"Wouldn't you be doing the same thing as I were. If you were me?" he asked boldly.

"I'm just trying to make you see" his bright eyes were watching her, for a blink, a flicker, a waver in that immovable will.

She could not say anything. He was calling her a hypocrite, and he was right.

Would she sacrifice another person, to get to Sora? Many people? A part of her said she wouldn't, another part knew that she could.

An unwanted sympathy and understanding began to thrive in her.

"Think on it" Axel said, and after a moment, turned away and left the room.


	6. Envelop

Envelop-

Kairi waited, her arms crossed tight over her chest, her eyes wide open, she felt like she cold never sleep again.

Axel had left her needing something, she did not know what exactly, but what did he mean? She wanted a full explanation, half hoping it would give her a reason to like him less, and at the same time, afraid it would evoke a fondness for him. Where was he? She sat and waited, her thoughts racing, desperate for a direction to go to. A conclusion needed to be made about this man, she needed more information.

Eventually, a loud bang resounded through the ships cold metal walls, and she knew he was coming, she listened for the clang of his boots to reach her, eventually they came into earshot, then stopped, she saw the silhouette of his hand reach to draw back the curtain, she took in a deep breath.

He pushed away the curtain and her eyes fell on him. The threatening disposition he carried when he had met her on Destiny island seemed to have left him.

She was eager to speak to him, she was so sick and tired of being afraid, a perverse part of her wanted a reason to like this man, to trust him.

He looked on her with a noticeable interest as he came into the room, she sat against the headboard of the bed, waiting.

"You seem lively" he said with a weary voice, as he unzipped his trench coat and threw it on a nearby chair.

"Tell me who Roxas is" she demanded, Axel stopped, a bitter, smile dawned on his lips

"My my, aren't we direct today"

"When have I ever been indirect?" she asked with venom.

"Feisty, feisty" he said, as if her straightforwardness was somewhat of an entertainment to him. He peeled off a glove and softly touched her chin tilting it towards him. His hand was warm.

"For someone with so much fire in them, you sure have cold skin"

He was dodging the question, it was all Kairi could do to not to slap his hand away

"What is that supposed to mean" she spat defensively

"Jeez princess" he said throwing his arms up. She glared at him, arms crossed over her chest, then he sighed in defeat

"Roxas is nobody" He said after awhile, smirking at the truthfulness in his words. He reluctantly looked at her

"My best friend, my team mate, the person I sat with everyday after work and ate ice cream with"

As devious as Axel seemed to be, he was very bad at keeping one particular emotion from

reaching those clear green eyes. Kairi bore deep down into them, driving for some hidden truth or fleshed out secret, but all she could find was hurt.

"That's all you need to know for now" he said quietly pulling his eyes away from her. He started to walk slowly around the bed eventually sitting on the opposite side of her and kicking off his boots

"Im tired princess, go back to sleep" he slowly lowed himself onto the bed and laid there with his back facing her

"Im not tired" her arms we still crossed, tight around her chest. Axel rolled over onto his back and sighed very deeply, he looked over at her, his eyes making contact with her in a pleading way.

She sighed then too, uncrossing her arms and pulling herself down form the headboard, she turned away from him and curled up on her side, lying awake there.

She laid there until Axel awoke, she had heard him stir and turned to face him.

She had no concept of time anymore, she constantly felt sluggish and weak, maybe it was from being in outer space? Maybe it was from having no clocks to judge the time with. She waited till he fully awoke his eyes meeting hers from across the bed.

"How long have I been here" she asked quietly, gazing at him from across the deep green bed sheets, she was afraid the answer might be something she did not want to hear.

"What is time, princess?" he was dodging the question again, looking away to gesture wildly towards the sky. She was too sluggish at the moment to get her temper up.

"Does time really matter in a place like this?" he questioned into the quiet room, his long arms falling to his sides.

"I often think about these things when im alone here" He grumbled turning his head and his eyes to meet her. Her violet irises met the eyes of a lonely man, drifting through outer space

Kairi was hit with violet panic that ate through her stomach and chest all too quickly. She looked away pushing away her empathy. Her heart beat faster.

"Lets go get some food" he said at last pushing off the bed to get up. He came around to her bedside

"Can you walk?" he asked, offering his arm. She did not take it, an instead attempted to stand on her own. Her feel lightly met the ground as she slid off Axel's large bed. The first thing she noticed was her ankle, it stung, she had hurt it when she had first come here, it could only mean not very much time had passed after all. Her legs were weak, shaky and her muscles still ached when put to use

Kairi took a wobbly step towards the door, wincing at the pain in her ankle, she herd Axel's heavy sigh behind her as she continued to walk. Once they were through the threshold it was as if a veil had been lifted, the air was stagnant here, and fringed cold, she suddenly adopted a keen sense of Axles warpath beside her. She began to shiver as she limped down the hallway. While she could feel her own body temperature drop, Axel's seemed to be rising. She could even close her eyes and feel his presence beside her. They eventually reached the kitchen Axel gestured for her to enter first and she tried to maintain her composure as she rushed towards the nearest chair in the room and as gracefully as she could, collapsed onto it. Axel began to move bustle through the kitchen looking back at her every so often as he clattered through the cupboards.

Kairi crossed her arms tightly and leaned forward in her chair, trying to stifle her shivering. Eventually he brought a plate over to her with a sandwich on it, she was so sick of sandwiches .She looked up at him, he had already started on his, her eyes fell to her plate again.

"So, tell me about Sora" Axel said casually seeming to be trying to make conversation, he leaned on the table next to her

"Im not telling you anything" she said sharply,

The room fell into a moment of silence and the awkwardness mounted

"Don't you ever get sick of sandwiches?" she asked, trying to strike up a more simple conversation

"Sometimes I have pizza" he said, his mouth still full. She couldn't help but smirk at this, Axel seemed to have the table manners of a little kid. She cast a sidelong glance to the cup of water Axel had placed on the table for her, it was cold, she couldn't stand to drink it, instead she pursed her lips and took a bite of her dry sandwich. Her body was shaking, Axel stood there quietly until she had finished eating, then took her plate form her and set it aside on the table

He crouched down in front of her

"Did you hurt your foot?" he asked, Kairi blushed from the sudden direct eye contact between them. He had gotten too close, close enough for her to feel his warmth, smell him

"Yeah, trying to get away from you" she muttered under her berth, but loud enough for him to hear

He reached down to untie her laces and gently pull off her shoe

when he folded over he sock she could see that it was badly bruised along the side, with a sick green, brown and red color, his warm hands touched her icy feet and she winced a little bit from the pain. He pressed the palm of his hand against the soul of her foot.

"You shouldn't walk on it" he said rising to his feet

She stared up at him

"Ill carry you back to the room" he said, and before she could protest he already had her in his arms

The walk down the hallway was awkward and silent, she could hear Axel's forced steady breathing as he carried her extra weight, Kari's eyes scanned the ship, she tried to map out the way in her head, every turn every passageway that they had walked past. Soon enough the chill had gone away and they were in Axel's room, he sat down on the side of the bed and held her there in his lap until her body stopped trembling,they still hadn't spoken since the kitchen, Kairi thought she should try to find something to say, but no words came, they were quiet, Kairi's thoughts raced, she was not used to being this close to a person, let alone a boy.

Axel had an alluring smoky smell, she leaned in closer, and Axel's body suddenly became very still.

She twisted her torso to press against his, her arms snaked around to his back as she embraced him resting her chin on his shoulder. She was tense, her breathing became uneven and her heart began to race. She felt like couldn't get close enough to him, she still needed to feel his warmth and smell his skin. A wayward hand slipped underneath his shirt at his lower back and smoothed over the warm skin there

"Sorry, im just cold" she said shakally pulling away and placing her hands over his chest, she paused for a moment, there was no heartbeat underneath her palm

Axel's ridged body seemed to soften with her words, and he enveloped her

She sighed then in relief and she wrapped her arms around him again, in response.

She had forgotten how good it felt to be held and the sensation was foremost in her mind, more important then the consequences this embrace might lead to, or the fact that as her heart pounded against his chest,

his pulse was still.


End file.
